It cost Switzerland $3.2 billion to buy 22 Gripen Es that will only being to be delivered from 2018 onwards. That works out to $145 million each, which are very high for a single engined medium weight fighter, even if they’re total program costs divided by the units acquired..That isn’t expensive? 😮

1. Its much cheaper than the same number of Rafale… or Typhoon… or Super Hornet… or… shall I go on?

2. It includes letting the Swiss have (and use) Gripen-As for several years before deliveries of their new Gripens starts.

3. The operating costs of Gripen are much lower than those of Rafale, Typhoon, Super Hornet, F-16E/F, etc.

4. That includes maintenance & support, spare parts (including engines), flight simulators, training, etc.

I know a guy who was on USS BonHomme Richard CVA-31 in that era… I’ll ask him.

We’ve had this discussion about this aircraft on here at least twice before.

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=118734

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=109835

I’m not getting on you for not finding the earlier threads… the broke-d!ck search (mis)function on this board couldn’t find either thread… despite the search term

B-17 “All American”

being in the title of the first link I posted.

I had to get the links from Google!

Another “old dog” idea from Dale Brown…

Seriously why would one bother with 50yr old airframes?
How stupid are these people?

Ask Carlo Kopp (F-111 modernization proposal).

I do believe the Nene to be a better engine… but there would be political problems with the USAF replacing the GE/Allison J33 with the Nene.

Pratt & Whitney had the US production license for the Nene, under the designation J42*… and we all know how touchy the USAF was in the late 19405-early 1950s about using anything “developed” for the USN.

* The J42 was in the Grumman F9F Panther fighters. The final Panther model and all the swept-wing F9F Cougars (same fuselage as the Panther) used the P&W J48… which P&W and RR had jointly developed from the Nene/J42, with the RR name Tay.

The Nene 10 was used in the Canadian-built CT-133s… the J33 in all US (Lockheed) manufactured models of P/F-80, T-33, and TO-1/TV-1.

I am not aware of what the technical differences between the J33 models are.

The numbers I got were from the engine entries in Jane’s and from this site… I don’t know where they got their info.

http://www.jet-engine.net/miltfspec.html

The J33-GE-3 produced 3,750 lbf, while the highest base thrust version put out 4,600 lbf.

Water injection (for take-off) raised the short-term thrust to 5,400 max, while some afterburning-equipped models had a top thrust of 6,950 lbf.

The J33 (most were built by Allison) was a General Electric development of the original centrifugal-flow engines sent to the US in early WW2. Therefore, the J33 and the Nene were parallel developments from the same early Whittle/PowerJets W.1 design.

W.1→W.2/Welland→Derwent→Nene

W.1→I16→J31→J33

Yes, 5,100 lbf seems to be the thrust for the Nene Mk.3, Mk.10, & Mk.102 given consistently by Jane’s for over 5 years worth of issues, as well as most on-line sources.

The Nene Mk.101 is listed as 5,000 lbf, and the Mk.103 is listed as 5,400 lbf.

Random thought….if the T-33 were to be re-engined (I know it’s never been suggested…just thought it would be a fun hypothetical)…. What power plant would best suit it?

Already been done, Boeing re-engined it with 2xGarrett TFE731-3A turbofans and made the Boeing Skyfox.

I suspect PhII meant to just replace the existing single fuselage-mounted Nene or J33 with another engine in the same location… not to completely rebuild and modify the airframe for 2 pod-mounted engines as in the Skyfox proposal.

Looks to me like the Adour (non-afterburning) would be a perfect fit.

The Adour is the same length for just the engine, and the same intake/exhaust diameter as both current engines (22″ vs ~25″), but only 31″ in diameter vs the 50″ diameter of the mid-section of the Nene/J33. The accessory pack for the Adour brings the height to 41″… which should fit just fine in the engine compartment.

The Mk861, Mk871, and Mk951 all have more thrust (5,710lb/5,900lb/6,500lb vs 4,600lb-5,400lb), a little less weight (1,300-1,350lb vs 1,475lb-1,820lb), and significantly less fuel consumption (.75 vs 1.06-1.14).

Intake/exhaust airflow ducting needs are similar (~95-97 lb/sec vs 87-91 for the Nene or J33), so little if any changes would be needed there.

The big difference would be with the far greater reliability and lower maintenance costs of the Adour.

{edit: Not to mention the hugely faster throttle-response (idle→max power in 7-8 seconds rather than a minute or more for the J33).}